Alucinor

Giants

GIANTS

The giant races are exceedingly rare upon Alucinor, ever since the pogroms and the waves of extermination that commenced eons ago. They have existed for long periods of time in the Underworld, but only recently have started to emerge above the surface.

Two races of giants, the firbolg and the goliath, have been still a part of mainstream society, as they were the closest to the humanoid races. They are listed in the humanoid section.

Brutes are an example of how the dark Avatars that have emerged have corrupted the land of Britannia after coming into being. These former humanoids were mutated into hulking giants. However, what they have gained in body height and mass, they now lack in the head. They are huge idiots whose primary occupation is to find someone who they can kill with their huge clubs. They enjoy fighting for the sake of fighting and can’t be reasoned with. They are even too dumb to feel pain. They are sometimes called ogres.

Cyclopes were native to the early lands of Alucinor existing there long before the coming of men to the realm, even before the rise of the Dragon Kings. At some point, however, the race was driven from their home lands, presumably by mankind or the other intelligent races which came to inhabit the Alucinoran overworld, and forcibly relocated into the caverns and dungeons of the world and into the darkest portions of the Underworld. Given this initial relationship with humanity, it is unsurprising that in later ages the cyclopes reacted to men with marked hostility. Throughout most of their appearances in Alucinor, these one-eyed giants have assaulted human travelers with relentless brutality, preferring to crush their victims with large stones or bludgeoning them with clubs. In the early days of the Age of Virtue, they were frequently seen in the company of gazers and zorn, although their exact relations to these two species are not well known. In later years, during the events that would crash the two moons together, the Avatar of Virtue seemingly became one of the first humans to uncover the cyclopes capacity for intelligence and empathy, after encountering two of the giants in the ruins of Stonegate who had adopted an abandoned Novian child after the death of their own offspring. The hero later had a opportunity to meet with Iskander Ironheart, a peaceable, albeit pragmatic hero of the species who was renowned for having slain seven gazer princes. Iskander’s conversations with the champion of virtue provided some of the only hints as to the internal workings of the Cyclopean culture, implying that the cyclopes followed a system of tribal lineage and that at least some segment of it wished primarily to live peaceably and unperturbed, farming the rocky soil of the mountains.

Ettins were first encountered in ancient Alucinor as a subterranean race, existing exclusively in the dungeons of the realm and the Underworld. Whether such beasts originated there or, like the cyclopes, were forced there by mankind is not known. In later eras ettins expanded into the over lands and underworlds alike, attacking travelers in packs – and at times accompanied by gazers, daemons, balrons, or zorn. It is uncertain what sparked such motley alliances of creatures, although as the landscape of Alucinor grew less dangerous with the passage of time, several of these races, including the ettins, vanished from sight.

Trolls and their origin upon Alucinor are not entirely clear. During Exodus’s reign of terror, trolls could often be found in the company of orcs or goblins, and were subject to dissolution by the same magicks which affected their companions, indicating that they may have been wrought from the selfsame experiments which created orcs and goblinkind. Later theorists, however, would posit that trolls descended from human stock, and that they had their origins amongst various groups of mountain dwelling people. Whatever their beginnings, trolls long proved a nuisance to the people under Lord Brutan’s rule, waylaying and murdering travellers for their possessions. Favoring simple weaponry, such as slings, throwing axes and clubs, trolls were of relatively weak constitution and prove little trouble for a seasoned warrior, although those not trained in the fighting arts could soon be overwhelmed by them. Rumors of trolls who could regenerate from their wounds were considered preposterous. For many years, trolls appeared to have little by the way of a culture, with their scant belongings almost always being stolen from slaughtered humans. During Sir Cabirus’s radical attempt to colonize the Stygian Abyss, however, many trolls were found who were willing to embrace the way of the Avatar of Virtue, and were subsequently converted to the path of the Eight Virtues. These Abyssal trolls managed for a time to coexist peaceably with the Knights of the Crux Ansata, and even after the eventual collapse of the colony still maintained cordial relations with humans. Sadly, this group of peaceable trolls did not endure, and by the time of the Red Emperor’s rise, the species once more appeared predisposed to violence and rapine. During these early years of the Age of Cataclysm, the voice of the malevolent conqueror of lands had reached this volatile species, rallying them in preparation for his eventual invasion. Despite this early allegiance to the Red Emperor, however, the trollish race has not appeared to survive Blackthorne’s reign as readily as one might presume, being subjected first to the extreme humanocentric pogroms.